Car logos with animals: the stories behind the badges

Animal badges are some of the easiest car logos to recognise, even from across the street. A horse, a bull or a lion says a lot about how a car company wants to be seen, and most of them come with a good story. Here are the best-known animal car logos, where they came from and how to tell the similar ones apart.

Horses: Ferrari and Porsche

Ferrari's prancing horse began on the side of a First World War fighter plane flown by Francesco Baracca, Italy's top flying ace. In 1923, after Enzo Ferrari won a race near Ravenna, he met Baracca's parents, and the ace's mother suggested he put the horse on his cars for luck. Enzo added a canary-yellow background, the colour of his home city of Modena. The horse first raced in 1932 on the Alfa Romeos run by his Scuderia Ferrari team, years before Ferrari built cars under its own name.

Porsche's crest has a black horse in the middle too. It comes from the coat of arms of Stuttgart, the company's home city, which grew up around a horse stud farm. Around it are the red and black stripes and the stag antlers of the old state of Württemberg. To tell the two horses apart at a glance, look at the background: Ferrari's horse stands alone on yellow, while Porsche's sits in the middle of a detailed gold shield.

One more horse is worth knowing: the galloping horse on a Ford Mustang. It's a model badge rather than a brand logo, so you'll only find it on Mustangs, where it usually takes the place of the Ford badge on the grille.

Bulls: Lamborghini

Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in April 1916 under the star sign of Taurus, the bull, and he was a fan of Spanish bullfighting. So Lamborghini's badge is a gold charging bull on a black shield, and many of its cars are named after famous fighting bulls or bull breeds. The Miura took its name from a famous breeder of fighting bulls, the Aventador was a bull known for its courage in the ring, and the Urus is named after the aurochs, the wild ancestor of today's cattle. The big exception is the Countach, whose name is an exclamation of amazement from the dialect of Piedmont in northern Italy.

Lions and big cats: Peugeot, Holden, Proton and Jaguar

Peugeot's lion is older than its cars. The Peugeot family registered it as a trademark in 1858 for the steel products they made at the time, such as saw blades, where it stood for strong teeth, a flexible blade and a fast cut. The lion has been redrawn many times since. The current badge, introduced in 2021, is a lion's head inside a shield, a nod to a Peugeot logo from the 1960s. Before that, Peugeots wore a lion standing on its hind legs.

Australia's Holden used a lion too: the "lion and stone" badge, designed by the sculptor Rayner Hoff in 1928. It was inspired by a fable in which watching a lion roll a stone gave people the idea for the wheel. Holden stopped building cars in Australia in 2017, and the brand was retired a few years later. Some Holdens were sold in the UK with Vauxhall badges, such as the Vauxhall Monaro and VXR8, so the lion itself is a rare sight here.

Malaysia's Proton has a tiger's head on its badge, and Jaguar's leaping cat, known as the leaper, has been part of the brand for decades. Jaguar redrew the leaper as part of a new look in 2024, but most Jaguars on the road still wear the older leaper or the snarling "growler" face badge on the grille.

Griffins: Vauxhall and Saab

Vauxhall's griffin, a mythical creature that's half eagle and half lion, goes back to the 13th century. It was the emblem of Fulk le Breant, a knight who was given land in what is now south London. His house there became known as Fulk's Hall, which over time turned into "Vauxhall", the name of the area. The company started there as the Vauxhall Iron Works and took both the name and the griffin. In 1905 it moved to Luton, where, by coincidence, Fulk had also been given the manor centuries earlier. The badge was redrawn in 2020 with a simpler, flatter griffin.

Saab's red griffin wearing a crown came from the coat of arms of the Swedish province of Scania, by way of Saab's merger with the truck maker Scania. Saab stopped making cars in 2011, but its 9-3s and 9-5s still turn up on UK roads.

A serpent and a scorpion: Alfa Romeo and Abarth

Alfa Romeo's round badge is split in two. On the left is the red cross of Milan, the city where the company was founded in 1910. On the right is the biscione, a crowned serpent swallowing a person, the emblem of the Visconti family who ruled Milan in the Middle Ages. It's one of the oldest and most unusual car logos still in use, and you'll find it on everything from classic Spiders to the Giulia Quadrifoglio.

Abarth's badge is a black scorpion on a red and yellow shield. The scorpion was the star sign of the company's founder, Carlo Abarth, who was born in November 1908. Abarth made its name tuning small Fiats, and today the scorpion marks the fastest versions of cars like the Fiat 500, such as the Abarth 595.

How to tell animal badges apart

• A black horse on yellow: Ferrari. A small black horse in the middle of a gold shield is Porsche.
• A gold bull on black: Lamborghini.
• A lion's head in a shield, or a lion on its hind legs: Peugeot.
• A griffin in a circle: Vauxhall. A red griffin's head wearing a crown is Saab.
• A round badge with a red cross and a serpent: Alfa Romeo.
• A scorpion on a red and yellow shield: Abarth.

More car logo stories

Animals aren't the only theme. Aston Martin, Bentley and Mini all use wings: see our guide to car logos with wings. To learn the details that separate one model from another, read how to identify a car from a photo, or browse every make in the CarSpot car brands directory.